


Three Dresses

by indirectkissesiniceland



Category: South Park
Genre: Family Fluff, Genderfluid Kenny, M/M, POV Second Person, k2 all day every day because I have no self-control, series-typical stendy is series-typical, supportive family, this wasn't going to be shippy but let's be real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6770017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indirectkissesiniceland/pseuds/indirectkissesiniceland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Mom could afford to buy you dresses, she would. Since she can't, she makes due.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Dress

When you are in the fourth grade, your group of friends is dressing up as wizards and knights for a high fantasy game. There are no girls joining you, and your cast of characters is seriously lacking in princesses. You can't play a proper fantasy game without a princess. Running your tongue over your lips, you voice this opinion.

"Of course it would be better with princesses, Kinny, but we don't have any chicks," Cartman points out.

You volunteer.

Cartman squints at you, like he can't tell if you're kidding. Stan frowns, first at you, then down at his toy sword, then back up at you. Kyle arches one eyebrow, but not meanly. He just does it because he's the only one of you who can. Leo sways from side to side in his seat, smiling absently.

"You have to have a pretty dress if you want to be a princess," Cartman decides. You don't like something in his tone and ask him what he means. "You're too poor to be the princess, Kinny. If you get a pretty dress, you can do it. Not like you'll outrank the Wizard King, after all."

"Or the Elf King," Kyle says, just to annoy Cartman. You wonder why you don't all just agree that this is going to end up being a war between the Wizard and Elf kingdoms, but for now, you're playing nice.

"Whatever, Kahl. Anyway, if you can get a nice dress, Kinny, you can be a princess. If you're in rags, you'll be the maid."

It's better than you hoped for. You'll take it.

When you get home, Dad is in front of the television, NASCAR blaring. Kevin is cracking open a beer, which Dad takes from him without looking. Karen is on the couch playing with a doll whose button eyes are mismatched. The originals went missing at different times, and Mom sewed on whatever spare buttons she had lying around at the time.

Mom is making a plate of blueberry Pop-Tarts, toasting them two by two. She has her back to you when you walk in. Blowing air out the side of her mouth, she rakes a hand through her frizzy hair. When she turns holding two more toasted Pop-Tarts by her fingertips, ruby red from the heat, she gasps. "Oh, Kenny, you startled me." She drops the two pastries onto the growing pile on the one clean plate you have left. You make a mental note to wash the stack of dishes in the sink after dinner. "Did you come to help me?"

You didn't, but Mom looks tired, so you do. You take the next shift toasting Pop-Tarts, putting them in once, flipping them over and toasting them a second time so the fruit guts cook all the way. She sits at the kitchen table, her chair rickety, and rests her chin in one palm.

"You do right by your momma, baby," she says warmly. You are mid-turn with the next set of Pop-Tarts pinched between your index finger and thumb. The blueberry guts are good and cooked; you can feel them burning up the whorls and loops of your fingerprints. When you flip the pastries onto the pile, Mom's smile ebbs. "Kenny? What's wrong?"

Nothing, you assure her, but Mom's psychic powers are unparalleled. She lifts her chin off of her hand and crosses her arms along the edge of the table. You fidget and ask if that's enough Pop-Tarts. She doesn't bite. Instead, she pulls out the chair next to hers and pats the wooden seat, making the chair rock on its unsteady legs. You sit next to her, and she pushes your hood down and starts smoothing your hair the second it explodes from its containment.

When she starts with that Mom Hum, that trademarked soothing sound that's no particular song, you know you are done for and lean into her fussing. You tell her about the game, and she encourages your story with quiet "Mm-hmms." You tell her that it isn't a proper fantasy game without a princess, and she smiles, and you tell her you volunteered to be the princess, and she says okay. Then you tell her Cartman said you need a pretty dress.

"I think I can rustle something up," Mom says. "I picked up a few things for Karen that are a little big so she can grow into them. One of those should fit you."

You fidget in your seat and clarify that you need a _really_ pretty dress. If it's a poor dress, you have to be the maid.

That's when Mom's fingers stop playing with your hair. "What?" she says. You repeat yourself. If you wear a poor dress, you have to be a maid. Cartman said so. Mom slaps her palms on the table and pushes herself up to standing. She stalks around your chair and grabs two more Pop-Tarts to start toasting. "Now, listen here, Kenny. Liane Cartman? She is a nice lady, but her son is a shitstain on the underpants of the world." Mom presses a kiss onto the top of your head, her lips lost somewhere in the jungle of your unwashed hair. "Don't use that word, baby."

You've used words ten times worse to greet your friends at the bus stop. You promise not to say it.

Mom stews over the toaster until it pops. She flips the pastries and puts them on again. Drums her finger on the counter. Huffs. When she turns to fling two more pastries onto the plate, you count them. Eight. Enough for everybody to have one-and-a-half, except Dad, who will have two. You offer to tell everyone dinner is ready, but Mom plops back down into the seat next to yours and grabs your hands.

"Kenny, I know we don't have much, and maybe your dad and I won't ever be anybody special." She runs her fingers through your hair again. "But our kids aren't going to grow up to be like us. You're going to school, and you're going to work your butts off until you're the most special folks who ever lived in South Park. I ain't lettin' anybody look down on my kids. You want to be a princess, that's what we're gonna do." 

You feel your eyes stinging, so you put your hood back up and pull the drawstrings until only your nose sticks out from the parka's opening. Mom kisses your jacket in place of the top of your head. She asks when you need your dress by, and you say tomorrow. She blows air out the side of her mouth again and nods once.

"Okay. I think we can manage."

She calls everyone in for dinner. You eat your Pop-Tarts in relative silence, and then everyone returns to what they were doing in the living room. Mom beckons you over with the crook of her finger and smiles when you follow her to her room. She pulls her sewing machine out from under the bed.

"Kenny, take a peek in my closet." 

You do.

"Not on Daddy's side, on my side. In the back, there should be a...a dress bag."

It's a trash bag pulled over three wire hangers and tied at the bottom. You retrieve it for your mother while she sets up her sewing machine on her bedside drawers. She tells you to open it up. You struggle with the knot at the bottom of the trash bag, sneeze on the dust, and finally wrangle the mystery garments out of their hold. Three dresses fan out over your lap. One is your mother's wedding gown, which has started to discolor a little. You recognize it from the pictures. The tea-length dress off some clearance rack, with eighties shoulder pads on short sleeves and rhinestone flowers on the belt. The second is a full-length hot pink dress that is far more wrinkled than the others. It has thick shoulder straps and falls straight down, shapeless. When she sees you frowning in confusion at it, Mom says it was a bridesmaid dress she wore to a friend's wedding when she was pregnant with you. You try to picture a sixteen-year-old version of your mother hefting her baby bump down the aisle in this shapeless bag of a gown. Her feet must have hurt.

The last dress was your mother's homecoming dress that she never got to wear. She doesn't talk about it much. She was pregnant with Kevin her freshman year of high school and soldiered on with her education, but when you came along, she had to drop out. Mom is always sure to tell you that being your mom is the best thing in the world, but Dad let you have it once when he caught you skipping school: "Your mother didn't give up on her future so you could give up on yours."

By now you've realized that your mother is going to cut up one of her dresses that she's held onto all these years so you can play dress-up, and you start backpedaling. Maybe you can just make a belt to put on one of those dresses Karen hasn't grown into yet. Mom clicks her tongue and takes the homecoming dress from your arms.

"I think this one's the most princess-y, don't you?" she asks. "Very youthful." It's Mom's way of saying she'll never wear it anyway, even though she's only twenty-six and could still get away with it. On her it would be a short dress, but if she takes it in to fit you, it'll be full-length, with a poofy white skirt and lilac bodice. In a snap, she's tugged your parka off so you're left in a thin undershirt, and she flips the dress over your head. You get lost in the crinoline. 

Mom is a whirlwind. She measures and pins and considers you with a keen, professional eye that make you wonder what she could've accomplished in another life. In what feels like a blink, she spins you around and marches you across the hall into the bathroom so you can see yourself in the mirror.

 _Mom, you don't have to_...dies on your lips. If you ignore the ratty little boy's face, and you do, and focus just on the dress, it is impossible to see anything but a tiny princess's reflection. Something flares up in your heart. Not just pride in your mom's abilities as a seamstress, not just glee that you'll have a pretty dress and get to rub Cartman's face in it. The dress fits you. You can't help yourself; you wiggle your hips. It swishes around your legs. In the mirror, you watch the white folds of the skirt crash over each other like waves.

 _Oh._ It's the only syllable you can get out.

Mom helps you out of the dress while avoiding pins, and you follow her back to her room. At first you help, plucking spools of thread to compare colors against the fabric, and threading the bobbin because Mom's eyes are tired. Eventually your eyes get tired, too, and you fall asleep on your parents' bed.

You wake up in your own. You're on your side, your blanket half-heartedly pulled up over your legs, and you take a minute to untangle yourself. The first thing you see when you look up is the princess dress hanging on the back of your door. Mom's fake-gold necklace is draped over the hanger's hook. Early morning rays of sunshine tumbling through your window catch it, sending a starburst of light across your wall.

You put on your dress and pull your parka over it but leave it unzipped so the lilac bodice and Mom's necklace show. You skitter into the kitchen in search of your snow boots, and Dad evaluates you over his mug of coffee. You can tell from the absent trucker hat and the way he massages his temple that he's got a hangover, but his eyes manage to focus on your dress. He stares for three Mississippis.

"Okay," he says finally, and though it's a response of resignation, he doesn't sound upset. You don't give him time to rethink this. Mom is pouring cereal from the box into Kevin's and Karen's hands. Crap. You meant to wash the dishes for her. You will today, as soon as you get home. Before she feeds you breakfast, you loop your arms around Mom's waist. She pushes back your hood so she can kiss your forehead properly.

Karen loves your dress, and you promise she can have it when it fits her. Kevin and Karen might have the luxury of eating their cereal slowly, but your time is limited. Thunderous, insistent pounding on your front door can only possibly be Cartman. You put the heel of your hand to your bottom lip and tip your head and hand back, dumping all of the cereal into your mouth in one go. Cheeks puffed like a chipmunk's, you chew hard and fast while you launch yourself from your seat and patter across the living room. 

The knocking continues, Dad is blustering somewhere between average justified annoyance and hangover sensitivity, and you gulp the last crunchy bit down as you open the door. Cartman, Stan, and Kyle are on your doorstep. Cartman's Wizard King getup is Frankensteined together from an old Halloween costume and a velvet bathrobe. Stan has a bedsheet for a cape and a bike helmet bordered with duct tape in place of iron. Kyle looks like he's wearing his regular play clothes with a modified robe over it, maybe patched together with his own two hands, and has a wreath of branches pulled down snugly over his ushanka.

You are deliciously overdressed.

"Kinny! Wh—" Cartman does a double-take that's exaggerated enough to look straight out of a cartoon. "Where did you get a princess dress?"

It doesn't matter, you point out smugly, putting your hands on your hips and striking a pose for effect. You're the fairest in the land, and there's nothing Cartman can do about it.

Cartman sputters, red-faced, and reminds you that wizard kings outrank princesses, while Kyle howls with delight. Stan laughs, flashes you a thumbs-up, and insists you hurry to the schoolyard.

"Butters is waiting for us," Stan says. "Craig and those guys are coming to play, too."

"Yeah, and Tweek wants to be a king, too," Cartman scoffs. "Who would follow a Barbarian King? That's just stupid."

"Not as stupid as a Wizard King," Kyle says. Stan cuts between him and Cartman and talks over Cartman's retort, repeating that they have to get going or they'll be late.

All these kings and only one princess. Clearly you will rule them all.

You close the door behind you, and Stan and Cartman are already down the front steps and at the sidewalk. Kyle waits for you with a pensive expression on his face, but as soon as you pick up the skirt of your dress to move, Stan and Cartman are running towards the playground.

"You look really pretty, Kenny," Kyle says.

It catches you off-guard, and there's that flare again. That same sort of pride-joy-upside-down-ness that you felt looking at Mom's handiwork in the bathroom mirror. The crinoline brushes your legs.

Then Kyle's off and running, yelling for Stan to wait up, and you're running after him. You can run just as fast in this dress as you can in snow pants. You can run faster than anyone.


	2. Second Dress

The night before you start seventh grade, junior high, you fold laundry for your mother. You leave your parents' laundry on their bed, Kevin's on his, Karen's on hers. Mostly. Mom still buys her thrift shop dresses a size too big so they'll last longer, and you tuck a few of the new ones under your jeans and baseball shirts. Karen knows you take them sometimes and doesn't mind. In fact, you're pretty sure your whole family knows you take them sometimes, but nobody's said anything.

You have a full-length mirror that hangs on your closet door. Your parents gave it to you for your birthday two years ago. You shimmy out of your play clothes and slip a loose white dress over your head. It fits you better than it fits Karen, but by the time she's big enough for it, it'll look better on her. Doesn't matter. For now, you can pivot your body from side to side and make the soft cotton swish around your knees. There's hair on your legs now, and you wish there wasn't. You tried shaving them once but cut your shin surprisingly deep. It bled longer than you expected and scared you off. You want to ask Mom how to shave properly, but you also keep finding excuses not to.

So you don't look at your legs. You focus on the dress, how airy it feels. How soft and sweet it makes you feel.

It's not that you want to be a girl, exactly, though you're not committed to boy-ness all the time, either. You still swipe your father's  _Playboy_ magazines and make crude suggestions for Stan's date nights with Wendy. You like playing sports with the guys. But sometimes you like wearing dresses. Privately, in your own home, with your bedroom door closed. Or you find yourself straining to overhear the girls' gossip for reasons other than trying to determine if they think you're cute. And every once in a while you remember that time you were a princess and Kyle said you looked pretty.

You run your tongue over your lips and turn your hip to the mirror. You think you look pretty in this dress.

Two quick raps on the door, and then Dad lets himself in without asking if it's okay. You jump in alarm and spin around to face him. He hovers in the doorway for a second. You cross your arms over your chest, then realize that the most incriminating part of your dress is the frilly skirt, so you drop your arms and bunch your hands in the sides of the dress, pulling fabric behind your back, the skirt going from an a-line to a pencil. Maybe he'll think it's shorts.

Dad sighs and steps into your room, closing the door behind him. He's got a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand, but he doesn't so much as slow his pace when he strides over and takes a seat on your bed. The mattress wheezes under his weight. He exhales heavily, takes a gulp of beer, shakes his head, and sighs again. You watch him warily. Sweat is forming on your palms, and you scrunch the dress up to wipe them. You wish it were warm from a dryer instead of just dry and hard from hanging on the makeshift clothesline Mom put up in the kitchen.

A minute passes. Two. Then Dad pats the mattress beside him. You inch over and lower yourself down next to him.

He twists his lips a little, his mustache crooking. "How come you wear dresses, Kenny?"

You fold your hands in your lap and study your thumbs.

"I mean, do you..." Dad sighs again. "Do you want me to call you my daughter instead of my son?"

You don't expect the question, and it takes you a second to answer. No, you don't want to be his daughter. You think about it some more, then ask if he can just call you "Kenny" or his "child" instead. He takes a swig of beer and swishes it in his mouth.

"Okay," he says.

You sit in quiet for a few more minutes, Dad drinking his beer, you smoothing your dress, and it's kind of awkward, but not in a bad way. Dad is trying, which you didn't expect. Not that you really expected anything, except maybe that no one was ever going to acknowledge the elephant you've been hiding in your room.

"So," Dad says, and you look up. "Some days boy clothes, some days girl clothes?"

You shrug and make a little  _mm-hmm_ sound. Dad's head bobs in distant understanding.

"You don't hafta lock yourself up in here, you know," Dad says. "We don't care if you want to wear dresses, Kenny." He ruffles your hair, then just sort of leaves his hand there, a gentle weight on top of your head.

Dad finishes his beer and leaves. You sit a minute longer, then go to find Mom to ask her how to shave your legs.


	3. Third Dress

It's the last week of summer before you start the ninth grade. You still have a few more weeks until school begins, but this is the end of the good weather. Already the weathermen are predicting dropping temperatures and snow in South Park. You and the guys go swimming in the pond and make the most of every last particle of daylight.

Stan has to be home sooner than the rest of you, which is rare, but he gets that funny look on his face that you only catch glimpses of when his parents are fighting worse than usual. "Mom wanted me to be home," he says. If his parents split up, you know Stan wants to stay with his mom. You hope she doesn't move her family away.

Kyle recognizes the look, too, and turns solemn. "Yeah, me, too," he says. You all know it's a lie. You say you have to be home as well. An even bigger lie. Cartman, of course, calls you both on it. Kyle rolls his eyes and doesn't bite back, instead turning towards Stan and saying you can all leave together. You follow his lead and half-expect Cartman to pursue you, but he doesn't. He hurls a few slurs at Kyle's back, and they roll off like raindrops on a duck's feathers. His voice grows softer even before he's far in the distance. Kyle doesn't rise to the bait as much as he used to, and Cartman's getting bored of picking fights. They're growing apart. It's the first sign that adolescence is ending. A year from now, you'll be moving up from junior high to the high school. You wonder if Cartman will still be part of your group by then, because if it comes down to a civil war, you and Stan will both pick Kyle. You think Cartman knows that. You wonder if it scares him.

Once when you were kids you remember overhearing Mom and Mrs. Broflovski talking about how Dad and Mr. Broflovski were best friends when they were kids. Then Mr. Broflovski was valedictorian and went to law school, and Dad...didn't. You wonder how your life would be different if Dad hadn't dropped out to drink. Maybe you and Kyle would have been best friends the way he and Stan are now. You bet your house would be nicer. Mom wouldn't be so tired all the time. You wonder if your parents still would've gotten together if they hadn't met in a bar. You do the math. You probably wouldn't exist right now. You hate that you owe your existence to your parents' being alcoholics.

You're so lost in thought that you reach Stan's house sooner than you expect, and then it's just you and Kyle. Stan waves glumly over his shoulder. You can hear his parents fighting from here. They're worse than your parents ever were.

"Walk you home?" Kyle asks, scratching the back of his head. It's been years since that old green ushanka hid his hair, the one he wore literally until it fell apart in sixth grade. After that, he convinced his mother to let him cut his hair. It's still a mess of curls that spiral in every direction, but it doesn't, as Kyle dryly joked when he first cut it, require its own zip code anymore. You shrug your acceptance of his casual request, and you both pass his house to get to yours. The afternoon train is coming through town, and you stand a safe distance from the tracks as it zooms past, flickers of your house appearing between cars for split-seconds.

There are too many thoughts in your head right now. How everything is changing. A year from now, Kyle will have delivered his first valedictorian speech, what would've been his second if the middle school believed in announcing valedictorians. He will be in honors classes, Stan will make varsity, and you will fall between the cracks. It's not that Stan and Kyle don't love you. It's that absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It makes the heart forget. Out of sight, out of mind. The mind pushes out old memories to make room for the new. One day you will be Kenny, That Kid We Used To Hang Out With. Another day after that, you won't be Kenny anymore, and then it's a hop, skip, and a jump to irrelevance when Kyle and his copious law degrees rule the world and Stan devotes himself to being the family man his father wasn't and only invites his mother for Christmas. Their memories of South Park will blur you out, even though you'll be the only one of you left here.

Just as the last cars are thundering down the tracks, you suck in a deep breath and grab Kyle's sleeve. You yank his arm and catch him by surprise, and he stumbles into you. You move your lips as close as you dare to his ear and ask him to tell you something nobody knows.

He glances over at you, barely moving his head, and quirks an eyebrow because he can. You've always thought his eyes were brown, but from this distance, you can see the teeniest-tiniest flicker of moss green right around his irises.

"Something no one else knows?" he repeats. His voice crackles like a candy wrapper. Cartman gave him a hard time about it until he realized it meant Kyle's voice was changing first. "Like a secret?"

Not a deep-dark secret, just something Kyle's never said out loud before. Some memory, some fun fact. Some part of him that can belong to you. A tithe to soothe the sting of the part of you he doesn't realize is his.

The last car rumbles past, its aftershocks climbing from the pavement under your feet through the worn soles of your boots. They're too small and pinch your toes, but Karen needs a new pair more than you do. You peel yourself away from Kyle. He'd probably think it was weird if you kept talking right into his ear with the train gone.

He turns your question over in his mind, eyes lifting to the twilight falling over the clouds. Finally he drops his gaze back to you. "I'm scared Stan's going to move away."

It hurts your heart that Kyle has never told anyone this, even though you've all been fearing it for years. You think about it for a second and realize you've never said it out loud, either. So you do. You agree. Kyle's eyes soften, and he gives you a flicker of a smile.

"I know, Kenny. Nobody else would get it the way you would."

You cross the tracks. Once you're on the wrong side where your family lives, Kyle shakes his head, like he's literally shaking away that moment of vulnerability.

"Okay, your turn," he says. "Tell me something nobody else knows."

You don't mean to tell him, or maybe you do. Maybe telling him was your whole motivation for starting this conversation. No one is around to hear you anyway. You ask him if he remembers when you were a princess, and he smiles and eggs you on with a leading  _mm-hmm?_ The back of your brain scrambles to come up with a possible other secret that question could lead into, but your mouth ignores it. You tell him that you like to wear dresses sometimes.

Kyle tilts his head, the faint smile still quirking on his lips, and you are suddenly very interested in picking lint off the bottom of your jacket. He stops walking, and you overshoot him by a few steps. With a swallow, you force yourself to turn. Kyle's not smiling anymore, but he doesn't look grossed out or anything. He's not looking at you like you're a circus freak. South Park has never been quieter.

"When?" he asks. You stutter, not sure what he means, not sure what to make of the confusion in his voice. "I haven't seen you in a dress since you were the princess." You point out that that's what makes it a secret. "I thought we weren't sharing secrets. Just things we haven't told anybody out loud." You tell him to save his lawyer-ing for debate club. There's a funny little smile on his face, and he crosses his arms and crooks an eyebrow at you again. "When?" he repeats, and his voice is gentle.

When you're alone, you say, or just at home with your family. He takes the extra couple of steps to catch up to you.

"So somebody else  _does_ know," he points out.

Family is different, you correct. He rocks his weight from one foot to the other and hums in a way that says  _Oh, I suppose_. It's quiet between you, but not stifling. Kyle rocks again.

"Can I see?" he asks. You look up at him in what you're sure is alarm, because his face flushes. "You in a dress?" he clarifies needlessly. You ask why, and it comes out with a bite. "I just...want to," he says lamely, and it's not like Kyle to be so inarticulate. You stare him down for a few more minutes, and he sighs, his arms loosening so he can slip his hands into his pockets. "Sorry, that's...I guess that's rude of me to ask. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

It's not that, you interrupt. He eyes you again with curiosity. The idea of wearing a dress to show Kyle makes your chest ache with anxiety, but at the same time, you really, really want to. You rub the back of your neck. Scratch one ankle with the other foot's toe. Take a deep breath. Ask if Kyle really has to be home so early.

He follows you into your house, and you're less mortified than usual because of what's on the horizon. Mom and Dad are drinking on the couch. Kevin's trying to swipe a beer, but even at their drunkest, you know how vigilant your parents are. Weirdly enough. Karen must be in her room.

Kyle greets your parents politely when you cross the living room. They make the same zombie-ish sound of acknowledgement, eyes not leaving the television. Kyle ducks into your room and sits on the bed. You hover in the doorway and tell him you'll be right back.

Karen is in her room playing with dolls when you stick your head in and ask if she has the white dress. She says it's in the wash. What about the blue one, you ask. Also in the wash.

"Besides," she says, she's not as interested in wearing dresses as she was when she was younger. "They're harder to play in." Normally you'd consider it ironic that your little sister is becoming a pants-only tomboy, but you could scream hearing that the only dresses she has that still fit you are no longer options.

You're dragging your feet back to your room to tell Kyle nevermind when you pass your parents' open door. A flash of hot pink catches your attention. A friend of your parents' is getting married next weekend, and Mom fixed up that old bridesmaid dress, taking in the maternity size and fixing the straps so they weren't so dated. The finished product hangs on the back of their door. You lick your lips. You're almost the same height as your mother now. Your parents are glued to the television. You'll borrow it for ten minutes, fifteen tops, and they'll never know. You slip the dress off the hanger and pad back to your room.

When he sees the hot pink fabric, Kyle's eyebrows shoot up. You are quick to make the disclaimer that it's your mom's dress and you've never worn it before, so if it doesn't look right, he can't laugh. Kyle's eyes are very serious when he says, "I'm not going to laugh at you, Kenny."

You change in the closet while Kyle sits outside. After pulling and plucking at every inch of fabric that might be tucked in still or not falling the right way, you rest your hands on the inside of your closet door. Only your family has ever seen you in dresses, but if you're going to share it with someone else, of course it's going to be Kyle. You turn the knob slowly and open the door. It's a barrier for a few seconds more, shielding you from sight of your bed, and you peek your head around the edge of the door first. Kyle is craning his neck to see you and looks embarrassed to be caught. No laughing, you remind him, and he frowns.

You step out where he can see you.

The mirror is on the other side of the closet door, so you actually have no idea how you look in this dress, but you try to stand naturally. You look down at the skirt and smooth it out. Mom added darts so the dress cinches at the waist and fluffs out again at the bottom. It reminds you of your princess dress, and you hope Mom feels regal when she wears it, too.

A soft sound wrenches your eyes back up to Kyle. He still hasn't said anything, and for all his lanky limbs and voice-cracking suggesting puberty around the corner, he looks very boyish sitting on your bed staring at you. Out of habit, you turn your hips to make the dress swish around your legs. A smile ghosts across Kyle's lips, and he swallows, his eyes crawling back up to your face. Even though it takes him a while to meet your eyes, it's still too soon. You spin so he can see the back of the dress, too, and pretend that you're not stifling terrified trembling. When you're facing Kyle again, he's hunched forward a little, his elbows on his knees, and smiling at you.

"You look nice," he says, and you let out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding. It comes out pretty loudly, too, and you look away quickly. Kyle chuckles. "Maybe it's all those years of that bright orange jacket, but...I don't know, the dress kind of suits you." When you try to glare at him but end up beaming, he leans back so he's sitting up straight. "You're really pretty, Kenny."

You will wear more dresses in the future. By Christmas you'll have told Stan, and when he and Kyle come by your house, you won't bother to change into pants anymore. On the first day of high school, you will arrive in a denim dress and black tights your mother bought for _you_ , not Karen. There will be less of a reaction than you expect, and after Stan's news that he's the only first-year to make varsity is countered with his parents' news that they're splitting up, you won't even be the talk of the town for a whole week. You'll wear a green dress to prom, and Kyle, despite wracking up his second (third?) valedictorianship, will struggle with the zipper down the back because " _You shaved your legs?_ " Three minutes later, you will also struggle with the zipper trying to get it back up while chasing your father who is chasing Kyle out of your house, across the train tracks, and practically all the way back through the Broflovskis' front door. 

You wear pants and shorts and leggings and skirts, clothes from all different departments at the store, and South Park just kind of rolls with it. You suppose after some of the zany things this little mountain town has seen, a young person wearing whatever doesn't carry much shock factor. Still, you will think back on these three dresses as the stepping stones that opened that door for you. Of your mother sewing a princess dress out of a teenage dream she never lived. Of the gentle weight of your father's hand atop your head while he sipped beer and you smoothed out your skirt. Of Kyle telling you not that your dress was pretty but that  _you_ were pretty. And how precious and powerful you felt in that moment.


End file.
